Reform Scotland changes name to avoid Nigel Farage connection
Reform Scotland was founded in 2008 but the growing success of Farage's right-wing party throughout the UK has prompted a name-change to Enlighten.
Chris Deerin, the former journalist who heads the think tank, said organisations contacted by Reform Scotland were increasingly mixing up the two.
'Reform UK had a very good general election, ended up with five MPs, and, as we know from the polls, they are going to do quite well next year at the Holyrood election,' Deerin said.
'And we started to find there was confusion arising when we were speaking to people and introducing ourselves.
'As we became aware that their prospects
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ITV News
43 minutes ago
- ITV News
Rise in foreign states silencing dissidents in UK going 'unchecked', MPs warn
Foreign states are becoming bolder in their attempts to silence dissidents in the UK and the government must take stronger action, parliamentarians have warned. In a report published on Wednesday, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said transnational repression had increased in recent years, with foreign states using online harassment, lawsuits and physical violence to intimidate people in the UK. MI5 investigations into threats from other states have increased 48% since 2022, the report said, while committee chairman Lord David Alton warned the rise was 'going unchecked'. He said: 'This risks undermining the UK's ability to protect the human rights of its citizens and those who have sought safety within its borders. 'We have seen prominent cases of Hong Kongers with bounties placed on their heads, Iran intimidating journalists – but evidence submitted to the inquiry suggest this may be the tip of the iceberg.' The warning comes amid rising concern about transnational repression, including reports that China has offered rewards for people turning in pro-democracy Hong Kong activists based in the UK. Last month, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee warned that Iran had attempted to kidnap or murder at least 15 UK-based people since 2022. Meanwhile Russia has also targeted dissidents including the attempt to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal with Novichok in 2018. While the cross-party human rights committee said China, Russia and Iran were the 'most flagrant' perpetrators of transnational repression in the UK, it highlighted evidence suggesting a string of other countries including India, Rwanda, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had sought to target people in Britain. MPs and peers said they had also received 'substantial' evidence of intimidation by the Eritrean government, including surveillance of anti-government activists and infiltration of community groups and churches in an effort to isolate opponents of the regime. The committee went on to criticise Interpol, saying the organisation had refused to acknowledge misuse of 'red notices' – international requests for an arrest – to harass dissidents or take any steps to address this. Almost half of the 6,550 public red notices currently in circulation have been issued at Russia's request. Lord Alton said: 'We want to see a two-pronged approach from the government. More needs to be done to give support and protection to the individuals and communities most at risk of transnational repression. 'We also want to see transnational repression prioritised in diplomatic relations and leadership at an international level to tackle the misuse and exploitation of systems of justice to silence and intimidate.' As well as pressing Interpol for action on abuse of red notices, the committee urged the government to provide more training on transnational repression for police officers in the UK and greater protection from vexatious lawsuits known as Slapps (strategic lawsuits against public participation). The committee also called for China to be placed in the highest tier of the foreign influence registration scheme that came into effect last month, saying its omission risked 'undermining the credibility and coherence' of the scheme given the extent of Chinese transnational repression. An Interpol spokesperson said: 'Every year, thousands of the world's most serious criminals are arrested thanks to Interpol's systems. "Children are saved from sexual exploitation and terrorists, cyber criminals and traffickers are brought to justice. 'Interpol knows red notices are powerful tools for law enforcement co-operation, which is why we have robust processes for ensuring that all Interpol notices and diffusions comply with our rules. 'Our constitution forbids Interpol from undertaking activities of a political, military, religious or racial character and all our databases and activities must also comply with the universal declaration for human rights.' A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We take the threat of transnational repression extremely seriously. "Any attempts by a foreign state to coerce, intimidate, harass, or harm individuals on UK soil are considered a threat to our national security and sovereignty, and will not be tolerated. 'The committee's review echoes many of the same findings and recommendations from the Defending Democracy Taskforce report on TNR, published in May, and we are already taking action arising from those recommendations to further strengthen our response.'
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Hedge fund tycoon Hosking says rival Telegraph bid "ready to go"
The hedge fund founder enlisted to back a bid for The Daily Telegraph says the offer is "ready to go" if a takeover of the broadsheet title involving sovereign Gulf money runs into further regulatory problems. Sky News has learnt that Jeremy Hosking, the prominent City figure who co-founded Marathon Asset Management, is pledging to inject £100m of his own money into the newspaper group if the self-styled 'British bid' of which he is part is successful. Mr Hosking, who now runs Hosking Partners, has been working with Dovid Efune, the owner of the New York Sun, in an effort to gain control of the Telegraph for several months. They have been thwarted, though, by an agreement reached with RedBird Capital Partners, the US-based investment firm, to buy the titles for £500m following a two-year battle which has plunged the Telegraph into a protracted state of limbo. RedBird's bid includes tens of millions of pounds of funding from IMI, a state-backed Abu Dhabi vehicle, which cleared a key hurdle last week when the House of Lords voted against a 'fatal motion' which would have blocked the sovereign investment. The outcome of the vote was not without fierce debate, with 155 peers supporting the ban. IMI is controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club. Speaking through Mr Efune, Mr Hosking said in a statement on Wednesday morning: "We have been following the latest developments closely and with the best outcome for all Telegraph stakeholders front of mind. "We understand from the Lords debate last week that there is now a legal requirement for the government to formally investigate all the foreign government ties that may result in influence over the current preferred buyer. "Should the buyer be deemed unsuitable, our "British Bid" is ready to go. "We believe our current capitalization is more than adequate to replace the controlling shareholder's portion of the deal. "My own personal commitment is £100m in equity capital." Further details of the financing lined up by Mr Efune's consortium remain unclear, including the level of debt attached to his prospective offer. The RedBird-led acquisition of the Telegraph remains subject to investigations by both Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority, which are likely to delay completion of the deal into next year. Sky News previously revealed that Sir Leonard Blavatnik, owner of the DAZN sports streaming platform, and Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere were preparing to buy minority stakes as part of the RedBird transaction. Gerry Cardinale, the RedBird executive, who has spearheaded the latest iteration of its acquisition, has described the firm as "the right owner at the right time". RedBird said in May that it was "in discussions with select UK-based minority investors with print media expertise and strong commitment to upholding the editorial values of the Telegraph". The Telegraph titles' parent company was forced into insolvency proceedings in 2023 by Lloyds Banking Group, which ran out of patience with the Barclay family, their long-standing owner. RedBird IMI, a joint venture between the two firms, paid £600m several months later to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine. That objective was thwarted by a change in media ownership laws - which banned any form of foreign state ownership. Some peers argued last week that a 15% threshold was too high and that the legislation to permit it was dangerously ambiguous because it could allow for more than one state investor to aggregate their holdings in British newspapers. A further statutory instrument will need to be approved in order to address this issue. The Spectator, which had also been part of the same group, was sold last year for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Lord Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
How Denmark raised its retirement age without sparking protests
Planning an early retirement? You're out of luck if you live in Denmark. The Nordic country recently raised the state pension age to 70, a change that will kick in by 2040. The new legislation means that Danes are on track to become the oldest workers in Europe. It is just the latest in a series of increases after the Scandinavian country linked its retirement age to life expectancy in 2006 and legislated that it should be reviewed every five years. The welfare agreement of 2006 attempted to protect the country's finances and set pensions spending on a sustainable path. Without action, there were concerns that the cost of the state pension could spiral out of control as Danes lived longer but paid the same amount of lifetime taxes. It could be a glimpse into Britain's future. Here, the state pension age is currently 66 and scheduled to gradually rise to 68 by 2046. But calls are growing louder for the retirement aged to be raised further and faster. Without action, the cost of the expensive triple lock on pensions will balloon and force either higher taxes or cut backs elsewhere. 'I don't think we can really afford to [wait to the 2040s], to be frank,' Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, told The Telegraph last week. 'If there is a sudden economic miracle, then it might change that. But it does not look to be happening any time soon.' Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, announced a review into the state pension age last week in an effort to address the problem. 'There's kind of cross party consensus that ... we need to increase the state pension age to deal with the rising cost of the state pension system,' says Heidi Karjalainen, an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Such changes are controversial. In 2023, Jeremy Hunt, the then chancellor, shelved plans to lift the state pension age after a slump in life expectancy left ministers struggling to justify the change. In France, attempts to raise the retirement age have bought people out onto the streets in the thousands. Raising the retirement age to 70 has not led to fiery demonstrations on the streets of Copenhagen, however. The increase 'hasn't come as a surprise to anyone' given the 2006 legislation, says Damoun Ashournia, the chief economist at the Danish Trade Union Confederation. Denmark is one of nine OECD countries that currently links the retirement age to average life expectancy, effectively maintaining a fiscal brake on pension spending. The Nordic nation legislates that an average of 14.5 years should be spent in retirement. For every year increase in life expectancy in Denmark, the retirement age also rises by one year. Wouter De Tavernier, a pensions economist at the OECD, says the link prevents governments having to rerun difficult political debates every five or 10 years and helps countries maintain financial stability with their pensions system. 'It avoids having to restart the same discussions over and over again, and therefore making long term financial sustainability dependent on political decisions and political calculations about what might or might not be popular in the elections.' Yet even in Demark, there are limits. 'When we ask workers, the vast majority, 75pc, are against this increase,' says Ashournia. 'They worry that they won't be able to work until the retirement age, when we increase it by such an amount.' Karjalainen says asking people to retire at 70 is as much a psychological challenge as it is an actual problem. It is a new decade and one that feels far older to most people. 'I think the higher the state pension age goes, just kind of psychologically, people think of someone aged 65 and someone aged 70 as kind of very different types of people,' she says. However, it is not just about what voters will bear. There are physiological differences between 65 and 70. For instance, in the UK the rate of dementia stands at 1.7pc for those aged 65 to 69 years old but climbs to 3pc for 70 to 74-year-olds. 'We can't just keep increasing the retirement age forever, because it becomes unrealistic for workers to work for so long,' says Ashournia. The Danish Trade Union Confederation now wants the 2006 agreement to be softened, with the retirement age only rising by nine or 10 months for every year the life expectancy increases. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, has conceded that the policy may be at its limit. 'We no longer believe that the retirement age should be increased automatically,' she said in August last year. 'You can't just keep saying that people have to work a year longer.' Britain's costly dilemma In the UK, the bigger concern in policy circles is whether the Government can afford not to make people retire at 70. Spending on the state pension is only forecast to grow as a result of the costly triple lock, which guarantees annual increases by the highest of either average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5pc, whichever is highest. The UK is estimated to have spent 4.9pc of its GDP on the state pension for the 2024/25 financial year. On the current trajectory, the cost is forecast to reach 6.3pc of GDP by 2054/55. A 2023 independent report into the state pension age carried out by Baroness Rolfe recommended that the government should cap pension spending at 6pc of GDP to prevent overspending. It recommended raising the state pension age to 69 to ensure financial sustainability. However, a later retirement age raises questions about fairness. While the average life expectancy in the UK stands at 78.8 years for men and 82.8 years for women, there is significant variation across the country. Men in Blackpool and Glasgow city have some of the lowest rates of life expectancy in the UK, at 73.1 years and 73.6 years respectively. Any move to bring the state pension age in line with Denmark is likely to be met with significant pushback in the UK. Yet De Tavernier believes retirement at 70 will eventually reach Britain if life expectancy continues to rise. 'I think the discussion is more about in which time frame this will happen, and how do you get there? Do you get there by politics deciding on a time frame? Do you get there by linking a retirement age to life expectancy?' he says. The nation's pensions are heading towards a 'big fiscal challenge' that needs to be addressed, says David Sinclair, the chief executive of the International Longevity Centre. 'The fact that our politicians are too scared to talk about what retirement is like, and how we might need to be supporting work longer, and how we might need to be healthier, just feels like an utter failure of our entire political classes.' Ashournia says 'the vast majority' of Danish Trade Union Confederation members 'want to be working until the retirement age [and] even longer, if possible.' 'But today, two thirds retire prior to the retirement age because they cannot continue, or they choose to retire because they have saved sufficient funds. So the challenge for us is: how do we ensure that workers are able to continue to work until the retirement age – that's under the current retirement age, which is 67 today. 'When we increase the retirement age in the future, this problem is just going to be become bigger.'
